I’ve been offline for a really long time, in terms of this blog’s history, and thought I’d surface for air to post a brief update.
It’s been a quiet Christmas here at Jarrett House North. My mom came up to spend Christmas with Lisa and me, and we’ve had some nice gift giving and some really excellent meals. With only two cooks at any given time, we had to simplify the feast of seven fishes for Christmas Eve—instead, we just did pasta aio i olio with shrimp covered in breadcrumb with parsley and garlic and baked. On Christmas Day we did a beef tenderloin studded with pancetta with a nice red wine and shallot sauce.
Christmas Eve services at Old South were nice this year, a ceremony of lessons and carols. The opening, as in the Anglican service, was “Once in Royal David’s City”; for us, the opening verse was intoned from the back balcony of the church as the rest of the choir stood in the aisles with lit candles, then sang the second verse a cappella before the organ and congregation joined the final verse. The choir was good, despite the last minute addition of a substitute tenor (and one other tenor—me—being exceptionally sleep deprived).
What else? We have upgraded the photo equipment here at the Jarrett House, trading our old sturdy Nikon for a Canon PowerShot SD600. (I wanted something with higher resolution so I could print photos larger than 3″x4″; to my delight, the PowerShot is also faster, simpler, and generally better. Proof eventually to come once I get a chance to take some serious photos with it.)
And my old trusty 10GB iPod has been upgraded for a 30GB video iPod, thanks to a slew of gift certificates to Apple from my family. Now I have more room for music—I can fit at least 20 playlists on the thing alongside my standard rotating roster of unlistened-to music, plus photos, plus videos, and the screen is beautiful, bright, colorful, and shows album art. Special bonus: it fits in the car cradle I bought prior to the cross-country trip for the old one.
Today: a trip to the North End to get cotechino, a little light housework, and maybe even a nap.